By Next week sees the launch of “The Penguin” on HBO and Max, a spin-off series to 2022’s “The Batman” film that serves as a bridging story between that film and its upcoming sequel.
The series has had a long path, going through several incarnations before arriving in the form of a dark mob drama limited series with Colin Farrell donning a huge amount of make-up to take on the role of Oswald ‘Oz’ Cobblepot.
Reviews are now in and reaction so far is fairly positive with an interesting variation of opinions. Some love it, including some high-brow critics who admit they went in expecting little. Others seem to find it fairly bland with a recurring complaint about a slow first few episodes.
On Rotten Tomatoes, it’s pulling in a 93% (8/10) from critics, which is almost exactly the same score as the recent fourth season of “The Boys” at 93% (7.9/10). However, it also has a lower 73% (7/10) from top critics. On Metacritic it is a decidedly lower 68/100 which is just one point above “The Acolyte” and Farrell’s recent Apple TV+ series “Sugar”.
Here’s a sampling of review quotes:
“Farrell’s wild, go-for-broke performance makes the series a must-watch, even as it goes down more brutal, dark avenues than you’d ever expect from a Batman spinoff.” – Hoai-Tran Bui, Inverse
“LeFranc’s unsentimental sidelining of Batman allows The Penguin to thrive in his absence, revealing new textures of a Gotham we might have thought we already knew everything about.” – Roxana Hadadi, Vulture
“A masterful examination of criminality, the show is twisted, disturbing and deeply enthralling.” – Aramide Tinubu, Variety
“I’m here to tell you — and no one is more surprised than me, I assure you — that if you skipped The Penguin, you’d be making a big mistake, and missing out on one of the best television series of the year.” – Glen Weldon, NPR
“This is a five star series that mafia film fans will adore. It’s very much an Italian-American gangster Penguin, with Farrell finding the sweetest of evil spots between Tony Soprano and De Niro’s Vito Corleone.” – Martin Robinson, London Evening Standard
“It manages to tell an entertaining crime saga without leaning too much on the absent Dark Knight — although it still ends up falling prey to some of the weaknesses inherent in Batman adaptations.” – Christian Holub, EW
“Like entirely too many shows of this type, it treats us to cycles to colorful threats, sadistic torture, predictable betrayals and subsequent body disposals, delivered with professional polish but not enough creativity.” – Daniel Fienberg, THR
“The drama-filled second half of the season might just make audiences forget about the weak opening episodes – but the fact remains that there’s a lot of fat that could have been cut to focus in on the most interesting parts of the show.” – Louise Griffin, Radio Times
“If The Penguin just wants to use the former Oswald Cobblepot to tell a traditional Mob war story, it needs to tell a much more interesting version of one, with a more compelling protagonist, than what we get here.” – Alan Sepinwall, Rolling Stone
“The Penguin” series launches on September 19th and runs for eight episodes through November 10th.
The post “The Penguin” Reviews Are Fairly Good appeared first on Dark Horizons.
